STAYING GROUNDED

HARITH RIDZUAN 36 Founder, The Green Factory

Harith Ridzuan is the founder of The Green Factory, Kuala Lumpur’s greenest wood manufacturing facility. A second-generation woodworker, he joined his family’s 27-yearold furniture-making business after graduating from Nottingham University in 2008.

“By 2012, I started to question myself. We were doing what everybody else was doing. Was this what I wanted? When I’m on my deathbed, how will I look back at my life? Will I leave the world happy? Will I leave a better world for my children to live in?” he felt a strong sense of urgency.

“Woodworking, especially in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia, often links to illegal logging and unsustainable practices,” Harith acknowledges, identifying an injustice in the management of natural resources. By considering challenges in the local industry from wood waste management, poor land and forest control and unregulated sourcing of raw materials, he found clarity.

“I started to change my family’s legacy by embracing sustainability and have explored the greener side of the wood industry for close to a decade now,” Harith shares. His business assumes a holistic approach to green manufacturing, from sourcing materials, design, finishing, packaging, and waste management.

Under the Green Hammer initiative, Harith also guides local industry players towards replicating sustainable practices while manufacturing timber products. “Harith Green Carpenter continues to be my platform to focus on green activism and create a larger conversation with everyone interested in exploring the same scope.”